Blankfein also dials customers who use its online retail-loan service called Marcus: He introduces himself as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and asks about their their experiences with the bank’s personal loan product. Marcus issues loans ranging from $3,500 to $30,000 to individual consumers, a big departure from Goldman’s traditional client base.

The so what: The CB Insights on the amount of months it took GS to issue $1B in personal loans (8 months) versus what it took the next fastest lending startups (SoFi at 14 months to Prosper at 98 months) is pretty astonishing. Goldman is fully at the table and investing heavily into expanded out their revenue base through various verticals that were once only the domain of fintech startups. Having Blankfein actually talking to real consumers just validates this even more.